Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that America's current struggle with race issues is a result from a national "birth defect" that at the country's founding, denied blacks the same opportunities as whites.

In an interview with The Washington Times this week, Rice said that Black Americans were a founding population of this country.

"Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together - Europeans by choice and Africans in chains," she said. "That's not a very pretty reality of our founding."

"Descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that," she told The Washington times.

"That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today," she said.

Rice cited personal experience to illustrate "a paradox and contradiction in this country," which she says still has not been resolved.

On the one hand, she said, race in the U.S. "continues to have effects" on public discussions. On the other hand, "enormous progress" has been made she said, which allowed her to become the nation's chief diplomat.

"What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them - and that's our legacy," she said.